3 ways to charge your phone faster

There's nothing more frustrating than getting ready to leave home or the office, only to see your smartphone has very little battery and probably won't make it the whole way without dying.

The big question is, how quickly can you charge it up and be on your way? Not quickly enough? Then you need our clever tips...

1. Use a mains power adapter not a USB
If you use a USB port on your laptop, or another device with a USB port such as a speaker to charge your phone, it’s going to take longer than if you use a mains power adapter. This is because USB ports only offer 2.5w or 4.5w of power (depending on whether it’s USB 2.0 or USB 3.0) compared to a minimum of 5w of power from a mains power adapter.

However, it’s important to use a genuine mains power adapter that either came with your device or is manufactured by the smartphone brand itself or a reputable company such as Belkin, Anker or PNY to avoid the risk of the adapter, cable or your phone catching light.

If you’ve got an iPhone, Apple has confirmed it’s safe to use an iPad or Mac laptop charger, which offers between 10w or 12w of power, which will be even faster than using the mains power adapter that came with the handset.

2. Put it into airplane mode
Turning on airplane mode will ensure that apps and services that usually run in the background can’t drain the battery as you charge it. On an iPhone head to the settings app and then use the slider next to Airplane mode to switch it on, or swipe up from the bottom of the screen and tap the icon that looks like an aeroplane. If you've got an Android device, swipe down from the top of the screen and tape the aeroplane symbol.

3. Leave it to charge in peace
As tempting as it is, waking the screen to see how much battery you’ve got every few minutes while it’s on charge actually has a negative effect. That’s because lighting up the screen takes a fair bit of battery power. Where possible try to avoid using the phone in any way. However, an even better solution is to turn the phone off completely.